Naam-Lolwe festival to highlight danger of plastics

A campaign raising awareness on the harm that plastics are causing in Lake Victoria starts at Dunga beach in Kisumu today, with a series of activities, including high level discussions on whether there is need for a regional consensus on banning specific single-use polythene.

The FlipFlopi Naam-Lolwe festival of innovation and activism will feature several environmental awareness activities and talks, all aimed at saving the fresh water body lake from the choking effects of plastic waste.

Docked a few metres from the shores of the Lake Victoria at the Dunga Hill camp is the spectacular and famous 10-metre-long FlipFlopi boat, one of the highlights of the four-day event bringing together environmental activists, stakeholders and the county government of Kisumu.

Weighing about seven tonnes, the FlipFlopi dhow is made up of 100 per cent recycled plastic waste -- an intentional invention as a tool to create awareness in efforts to fight plastics in natural Kenyan waters.

The FlipFlopi, made in Lamu by dhow builder and environmental enthusiast Ali Skanda and launched in 2018 during the World Clean Up Day celebrations on the coast of Kenya was first launched in Lake Victoria on Sunday ahead of today’s start of the Naam Lolwe festival.

Guests, who include Nation Media Group Chief Executive Officer Stephen Gitagama and the head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, Mr Clifford Machoka, will sail on the plastic boat today from the Dunga fishing village to the Kisumu Yacht Club, where the discussions around the lake will be held.

Kisumu Governor Anyang Nyong’o, speaking ahead of today’s activities, said preservation of Lake Victoria remains a priority for leaders, citing plastic pollution as the greatest threat to the water body.

The County Government of Kisumu has partnered with the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, French Development Agency, Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Maritime Authority and other key stakeholders to develop an awareness campaign dubbed Justice for Lake Victoria.

Environmental activists are calling for conversations and regional consensus on the plastic waste threat to the lake.

“The lake is not well,” said Mr Dave Ojay, the founder of the Naam festival. “Research has shown that we had close to 360 types of fish in the 1960s but currently we only have about 43. It tells a lot about the health of our aquatic life,” he stated, expressing fear that the situation could worsen if interventions are not taken.

As part of the campaign, the FlipFlopi, which made its maiden voyage in January 2019 to Zanzibar -- a journey of two weeks from Lamu, will on Sunday make its second expedition across Lake Victoria to Jinja Uganda and then Mwanza Tanzania, over 21 days, to highlight the climate and pollution issues affecting the lake, encouraging cross-border collaborations and inspiring action.

It has been successful in sensitising hoteliers along the coastal line to ban use of plastics of any form, including straws.

“Our aim is the awareness on this plastic pollution and how we can stop it because it is altering and destroying our environment,” says Mr Skanda who is a volunteer on the project.

“It is messy and it needs collaboration. It is not short term but in the long term, we expect to see some changes because it is us causing this problem,” he said.

Also lined up for unveiling today by Prof Nyong’o is the Mbut Lolwe waste sculpture -- a huge fish statue that will be curated inside with plastics collected around Lake Victoria. It shall be mounted at a strategic spot on the road to Dunga.

Naam was founded in 2013 and has been conducting clean-ups in the lake alongside other advocacy engagements that involve stakeholders and the local community.

Mr Ojay said every clean-up in the Lake Victoria reveals the magnitude of harmful waste disposal and pollutants, which include oil spillage.

“The clean-ups include analysing the waste content so as to understand how waste comes in and from where. This then determines intervention,” he said. “The clean-ups help us understand the waste we are dealing with,” he stated.

The response from the local community has, however, not been encouraging, according to Mr Ojay. People are disinterested and just a handful turn up to take part, with the numbers dropping every time.

“There is lack of ownership by the local community. There is a lot of work to be done by the environmentalists and government and partnership is very important,” he states.

As part of the lake clean-up efforts, a campaign dubbed Justice for Lake Victoria was born in 2016 involving the three countries that share the lake -- Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The patron of the campaign is former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.

The Naam festival is part of a global solidarity programme dubbed ‘My Lake My Future’ which speaks for all endangered lakes. The next target is Lake Tana -- the largest lake in Ethiopia and the source of the Blue Nile.

Environmentalists say it is time the threats to the lake were turned into opportunities, citing opportunities to turn waste into energy.

“It is a wakeup call and we are ringing the bell. It is time for a plastics revolution to save our lake and the future,” said the Naam founder.

The four-day event will wind up on Sunday with boat racing at the Dunga Hill camp.

About the FlipFlopi

The idea of the FlipFlopi boat was conceived in 2016, following serious reflections between dhow builder Ali Skanda and a friend on the state of coastal beaches in Kenya which were littered with plastic waste.

Mr Skanda started getting concerned as a young man playing beach football along the Kenyan coastal line.

Disturbed, he would later meet a friend- Ben Morrison in 2016 who shared his concern- who ended up being the brains behind the FlipFlopi boat as an awareness campaign tool.

Mr Skanda comes from a dhow-building family.

His friend would visit his workshop in Lamu and together they would crack their brains on how best they could create awareness on the plastic threat to the waters.

Eventually, after sampling several recycled plastic waste, Mr Skanda would agree to the idea of building a boat.

The original idea was to build an 18.5-metre-long dhow, but it faced a lot of challenges as it was so heavy and fragile.

They would finally settle for a prototype, which took them two years to construct, giving birth to the FlipFlopi. About ten tonnes of plastics were used to construct the boat although it would eventually weight 7.5 tonnes due to shaping and chipping.

“We acknowledge that it is time to save the lake.  This is a conscious advocacy biased towards environmental awareness on the plastic menace,” said Mr Skanda, when the Nation caught up with him on the boat ahead of today’s launch.

“We have been watching our oceans being swallowed up by plastics along the coastal line and it is time to act,” said Mr Skanda, who at times plays captain to FlipFlopi.